Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos

Don't worry- I like this a lot more than The Mind of Evil!


Part One


"Oo arr? Oo arr? oo arr? Oo arr.."


This is reminding me a lot of the opening to Spearhead. But it looks impressive- those tentacles, the organic ship.

A couple of interesting guest characters; Chinn is the first really imbecilic civil servant we've seen- we're not all really like that, honest! Interesting once again to hear the Brigadier state that the Doctor is his personal responsibility. Then there's Bill Filer, who I assume is from the US branch of UNIT. Oddly enough I seemed to remember his accent being unconvincing, but this time it sounded fine to my British ears.

I'm enjoying this a lot- Pigbin Josh has something to do with it, but also the Doctor's abrasiveness is less alienating when directed against a true imbecile, Chinn, and his arseheaded nationalistic witterings. I can certainly see the value of that kind of character as set against this Doctor. Other nice sci-fi touches; science that's taken an organic path. This is so good I don't even mind the blatant CSO and "freak weather conditions"! a promising start from a new writing team.



Part Two


"Who leads the investigation?"

"Why, you do, of course."


The conversation between Chinn and the minister is good fun, and also signals to us that we shouldn't get too frustrated about Chinn's inane splutterings; he's there to provide comic relief, not to be a true obstacle. Which is a relief, because he's even more of a pillock here than he was last episode.

So, the Time Lords were not mentioned at all for six years and now the Axons know of them? The currency seems to be devaluing before our eyes...

Once more there are some nice touches- both UNIT and the Master are trying to achieve the same goal for very different reasons. In fact, Chinn is unwittingly doing good whilst UNIT are unwittingly sealing the world's fate. That's clever. I feel sorry for Winser though- the Doctor spends the whole episode being rude to him and then he dies!


Part Three


"Oh, I suppose you can take the usual precautions against nuclear blasts. Sticky tape on the windows and that sort of thing."



So, apparently "Axonite is simply bait for human greed." Actual subtext? Nah, probably not. Still, there's nothing wrong with not being very deep if it works as entertainment, and this does. I like Chinn's videophone, incidentally. There have been a lot of those lately. Almost enough to make you believe we're a few years in the future. Except everything on screen screams that we're not.

Bill Filer's saying urgent stuff while in a coma. We've been seeing a fair bit of that recently too...

We finally get our first sight of the TARDIS interior in colour. It's clearly the same set, and getting very tatty. And we get the first indication that the exterior is no longer a contemporary piece of street furniture as Hardiman calls it an "obsolete police box". The Master's just as scathing about the up-to-dateness of the interior too! these scenes are advancing what seems to be the season's Doctor / Master arc, mind, with the Master getting the measure of the Doctor's TARDIS. It's an interesting season to see in sequence.

Delgado is magnificent in this episode. I love both the delivery and the facial expressions at the exchange with Hardiman towards the end: "Are you trying to tell me you can absorb the total output of this complex in a police box?" "Yes."



Part Four


"Goodbye, Jo. I shall miss you."


I certainly raised an eyebrow at the Doctor slapping Jo!

A nice sense of crisis is achieved here- Hardiman going down with his ship is a nice touch. And I note that Chinn, who we haven't seen for a while, has now been relegated entirely to comic relief.

Previously I've not liked the ending to this story because the Doctor's apparent betrayal felt wrong. But this is a case of a story rising in my estimation because of the marathon; here his apparent betrayal feels exactly right. Whether intended or not, it comes across as a satisfying climax to the Doctor having been such an arse recently. There's a suspicion in the back of our mind that the increasingly nasty Doctor of recent weeks might actually be serious. Yet again Jo looks sympathetic as she refuses to believe in the Doctor's treachery.

Of course, not only was the Doctor not intending to leave his friends in the lurch (although escape from Earth, naturally, was part of the plan), he was selflessly risking eternity in a time loop. So he does care about others above himself, however much he might whinge.

In other news, we see the exterior to the Master's TARDIS- is this its undisguised form, a brown cupboard?



Overall, good fun. Not the greatest story ever told, but at least we get a script that tells us to enjoy ourselves, which makes the silliness of the setup work. And the Doctor's a lot more likeable here, partly because of the climax making it clear that he's just a big teddy bear underneath, but also because his rudeness is better targeted most of the time.

Doctor Who: The Mind of Evil

Part One


"He drowned. In the middle of a perfectly dry room."


Back to black and white, only this time we can imagine all the garish colours that we're missing. Interesting opening, though: "Smile, Jo. You're on camera." It's 1971, and a CCTV camera, even outside a prison, is seen as a sinister Orwellian presence. How times have changed. The Doctor's changing too; he may not be too pleased about it, but this time he's carrying a pass.

Hmmm. It's ambiguous, but the Doctor could have implied he supports capital punishment in this episode. He certainly doesn't like mind control as part of criminal justice though, or indeed as part of anything. In attitudes to mind control, and up to a point computers, this Doctor is not so unlike his predecessor. He's quite extraordinarily rude to Kettering here, interrupting everything he says and pooh-poohing everything. Kettering's not too sympathetic himself though-, as some of his dialogue implies: He will take his place as a useful, if lowly, member of society". The science is a bit dodgy too- what are these "negative" and "evil" brain impulses, and who defines them as such?

I'm not sure about UNIT's role here- in what way does providing security for a peace conference relate to dealing with "the odd, the unexplained"?

For the second time, the Doctor almost implies he's lived for thousands of years! Definitely a real continuity problem here. Perhaps when he said he was 450 years old in Tomb, which can't be more than a few years ago in the Doctor's timeline, he was speaking "in Earth terms"? He starts getting well mardy at the end. Which makes him look bad. And jo sticks up for him. Which helps us to like her, even though the Doctor's acting like a tit.

Keller installed the machine "over a year ago". We all know who he is, so either this is a whole year after Terror of the Autons or You-Know-Who's been around for longer than we thought.



Part Two


"Depends on how you look at it. An idiot or a saint..."


It's quite jarring to see the Doctor actually scared. Although it's comfortably familiar to see Benton spying in his civvies. He's not as good at it as he was in The Invasion though- sign of the times.

There's some good plot structuring going on here- the Chin Lee and Keller Machine subplots are beginning to intertwine at just the right moment and we're being fed plot developments at just the right pace. We also get introduced to the Master at just the right moment- his disguise is obvious but I think it's supposed to be.

The Doctor speaks to Fu Peng in Hokkien, and for the first time ever in Doctor Who we get subtitles! And the Doctor's apparently quite chummy with Mao. Such classy mates he has.

I'm fairly sure that's Jaws from the Bond films...



Part Three

"Don't point that thing at me, my man! It might go off!"

Blimey- the Doctor speaks Cantonese as well! jo gets to show her talents as well though- she does a pretty good job of escaping, if not for long.

At last the Master and the Doctor meet. And the Masters still making the same mistake as last time: "It can't harm me- I created it."

Part Four


"I do have remarkable powers of recovery, don't I?"


I like that- the Master's greatest fear is apparently the Doctor laughing at him.

Interesting to hear the Doctor say that an aspirin "could kill him"! I seem to recall him taking aspirin at least once, back when he was William Hartnell. He don't half look sweaty, incidentally.

I like the Doctor and Jo's escape. but this episode has problems. Why is the missile so incredibly lightly guarded? And I think this may well be one Keller machine cliffhanger too many.


Part Five


"A fortress? I suppose there couldn't possibly be a secret underground passage or something?"

Nice scene with the Doctor and Jo playing draughts, pointedly ignoring the Master. Particularly nice that Jo wins. It's also nice to get our first nostalgia sequence under the new Doctor, with brief flashes of stock photos of an Ice Lord, Cybermen, a Zarbi(!) and a Dalek. Almost enough for me to forgive yet another use of the Keller Machine.

We get our first real Moment Of Charm here, as the Doctor namedrops Raleigh to Jo and reminisces about how he "kept going on about this new vegetable he'd discovered".

A cliffhanger not involving the Keller Machine for once, and it's a good 'un for once- Mailer just shoots the Doctor. Sometimes the simple ones are the best.


Part Six


"Thank you, Brigadier. But do you think for once in your life you could arrive before the nick of time?"


Blimey, the Doctor is just so rude to the Brigadier after having his life saved. And he carries on being a pillock right through the scene: "Apart from losing the Master and the missile, you're doing very well, Brigadier." This really is a bit much. Part of this, admittedly, is Pertwee's acting choices- I suppose he could have delivered his lines in a less abrasive way. But ultimately he's playing the character as written. And the Doctor's actually not all that likeable at the moment. I know he's been exiled and we should cut him a bit of slack, but for the first time in the marathon the character of the Doctor is actually alienating me a bit.

We don't really get a very satisfactory ending aside from the generally well done Doctor / Master ongoing arc scenes. If the missile can be blown up, why recklessly transport it to the coast with a ridiculously tiny escort in the first place? And there's an extraordinary exchange following Barnham's rather unnecessary death where Jo regrettably says to the Doctor that "We should never have left him there". And instead of offering any sympathy the Doctor barks at her "How do you think I feel?"

The very last scene is nice, though. The contrast between the Doctor's exile and the Master's new-found freedom is very poignant, and it looks as though this arc will continue.





Overall- well, the first real clunker of the Pertwee years- 2/5. And worryingly the things I didn't like about it tend to sum up the way the programme's going at the moment. This was dull at times, and over-reliant on a single MacGuffin, but I've given 3/5s and 4/5 to other stories with those faults. Far more worrying, I think, was the tone. Like Terror of the Autons, this was fundamentally a fairly silly bit of fluff which only makes sense if you assume (as I think you're supposed to) that the Master is just essentially larking about and trying to get the Doctor's attention. But unlike Terror of the Autons, this isn't played for laughs. I like silliness, but silliness only works if the script gives you the occasional nod and a wink. And it doesn't here. Instead we get silly events but no signpost from the script that it's supposed to be fun.

Just as bad, UNIT are suddenly a tiny, very cosy organisation who are made to look useless. And I hope the Doctor gets himself into a better mood soon. Fortunately there are signs this could be a planned character arc. We'll see...